


Sweet Lonesome

by adventuresofsherloaf



Category: Mollock - Fandom, Sherlock - Fandom, Sherlolly - Fandom
Genre: AU, F/M, Reincarnation, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlolly - Freeform, mollock, reincarnated lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-12 21:53:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4496106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adventuresofsherloaf/pseuds/adventuresofsherloaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes and Molly Hooper are continuously reincarnated lovers.  Upon their meeting in their current life, Molly instantly remembers her soulmate.  Sherlock, however, is completely oblivious and clearly has no recollection of their past whatsoever, and besides, Molly thinks, they do not appear to be compatible.  Mixture of Soulmate AU and Reincarnation AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Familiarity

~1973~

The two lovers were 96 and 98 years old. Most of the nurses at the hospice were amazed they both had gotten to be as old as they were, given the time. Rarely did a man with dementia last this long, nor did a woman with bones and lungs as weak as hers. But somehow, the soulmates managed to still hold conversations, though they were but little remarks. “How was your day?” “Your meal?” “Love you.” It seemed a miracle that the two recognized each other regardless, and even more of one that they died the same day. 

Sitting aside each other on the sofa, as they had both demanded of the nurses, the man letting out a dry chuckle. “About time… for new ones, hm?”   
“Yes,” the woman answered, her breaths stretching fewer and farther between.   
Much to the nurses’ surprise, fully having expected to have to move the wife and watch the devastated and confused man for the next few days, weeks, months until he died, it was almost instantaneous. “Soon, love,” he whispered as his wife drew her last breath. 

Less than a minute later, the man, too, was dead, perhaps the most melancholy and beautiful thing to ever be witnessed by the caretakers. 

~2006~

SHERLOCK

Why did that woman seem so familiar? 

Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, obviously deeply confused as he exited St. Bartholomew’s mortuary, briskly stepped out of the door and into the cold London air. He had only been there to inspect a body. Murder. Note inside the coat pocket, clearly stating that the killer had been Ian Houndrel, only confirming what Sherlock had already thought. The man rolled his eyes as he made a point to delete Anderson’s downright irritating attempt at a joke, “he’s a real scoundrel”.

Regardless, he had flirted with the pathologist to gain access to the body, as she was obviously attracted to his appearance. Surely, he could use that information again to his advantage. Though he did not understand completely why he felt a hint of satisfaction that she was.

The more perplexing thing, however, as she was incredibly familiar in a way he could not, for the life of him, place how.

Had she been a client before? Perhaps now with a different identity? The tall man paused in the middle of the busy street, taking the idea into brief consideration. 

No. Impossible, decidedly. Her features, though seemingly ordinary, were quite prominent. For example, he would recognize those eyes absolutely anywhere from now on, he was sure…

Yes, he was quite sure he had seen those eyes before. Not a necessarily uncommon colour or shape, but the animated look behind them that only one’s brain could conjure, the “emotion” behind them, he supposed. Very innocent look, it was, but not quite in the way he would normally mark as “unimportant”...

Not a client, not a criminal, not an employee from the Yard, not an enemy. That was certainly everyone he knew, or at least, bothered to remember. The ones he did remember, he certainly never trusted. 

And yet, Sherlock knew he trusted this shy pathologist with doe eyes and brown hair so completely.

Who was she?

“Out of the way, prick,” came a growl, a weak shove made at the detective’s side as a man passed him. Eighteen, recently had a row with his mother – no, grandmother – in with the “wrong crowd”, owner of three cats. He looked down. Tattoo. 'No regerts'. 

A bemused smirk crossed over the detective’s face. Removing his mobile from his pocket, he texted Lestrade, giving him his current location. 

[SMS] Found our Ian. St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. –SH

He continued to follow the teenager from a distance, knowing the Yard would be there within three minutes. Best not to confront the criminal.

After all, he wouldn’t want to hurt him.

The confusion over the pathologist would not return to the man’s mind until much later, two years later, to be exact, though the cause of such memory would be the result of hurting her.

MOLLY

Oh, god. 

It was him. 

It was him!

Molly Hooper, as she knew she had with every other reincarnation of herself, had forgotten all about her soulmate until she saw him again. But all it took was one look to know that it was him, in his new form. 

Of course, she had no memories of her past lives with him. Just the knowledge that she had had them. 

But she knew she loved him. So much. 

As he approached, she smiled as widely as possible. My, he was fit, she thought. Very much so. Incredibly handsome, too. Gorgeous skin, beautiful hair, a face that was unlike absolutely any other…and as he got closer, she realized, he smelled…quite nice. 

It was all she could do not to reach out her arms and hug him as tightly as she could. She felt so completely whole in knowing that her soulmate was there again. They were safe, as they had found each other again, and they knew that they had several more lives together.

But her smile faltered when all she was met with was a calculating gaze. 

“Sherlock Holmes,” the man extended his hand to shake. At first she thought it was a cruel trick, but then she realized he was completely serious. Her lips parted slightly in complete shock, and as she figured out what had happened, or what she thought had happened, she felt too stunned to be upset. 

“M-Molly,” she stuttered, returning the handshake as her heart sank.

“Yes, well. Scotland Yard has sent me to inspect the body of a Harry Manson." 

Though she felt as though she should try to tell him and jog his memory, she was unsure if she should. Despite having no knowledge of what it was like meeting him in each life, she was rather sure they never had to figure it out before. Did they? 

She certainly couldn't tell him. Not right now, anyway. This man could nearly tear her apart with his gaze; she could only fear what his words could do to her.

"Doctor Hooper?"

Surprised at the sudden formality, she realized she had been utterly frozen with thought. "S-sorry. This way," she said, feeling every bit of confidence she usually carried with her shrink away under his cold stare. Was he always going to be like this? Surely he warmed up to people at some point. He'd have to if she were to make him remember who they were! How else would they end up together? 

A part of her felt broken at the idea that, quite possibly, they just wouldn't. 

...

The man was brilliant. Absolutely, incredibly brilliant. The way he looked at the body told her enough to start with: he knew everything he truthfully needed to know within seconds. Just plucking up a few of the limbs and looking at scars...his eyes told the entire story, along with the smirk that appeared on his face. 

It was a bit unsettling, the way his lip curled up in a chilling way. It didn't seem that professional, either. He only asked two questions, to her great disappointment, involving the body. Her little thing of a plan to hopefully catch his attention with their mutual knowledge of pathology and hopefully link it up in his mind to her being mutual to him in other ways was diminished after a few minutes, when he zipped up the bag and looked over her.

She said nothing, though a smile came to her face as she thought realization crossed over his features. Almost instantly, she felt so ready to reach up and wrap her arms tightly around him, feeling nothing more than love for this new man, despite - no, probably for - the uniqueness that was his and his alone. 

"I'll be keeping in touch. Murders could happen at any moment, and quite frankly, I'll need you for lab results." Not even waiting for a reply, Sherlock began striding out of the lab, passing Molly, whose mouth simply hung open in shock. 

Her eyes flooded with tears as she came to terms with two dreadful things.

One, Sherlock Holmes, her soulmate, did not love her. 

Two, he did not even care about her.


	2. Black, Two Sugars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the support in just a day! Definitely wasn't expecting that; it brought the biggest smile to my face. I'll try to update as frequently as I can. :)
> 
> And, as I'm using dialogue from A Study in Pink, as this is something of a spin on the debut scene of the two, I own nothing affiliated with the BBC or Sherlock, including all lines from the script of the episode.

~2010~

MOLLY

How did he always do that? 

Every single time, she was placed in this very position when it came to Sherlock Holmes. He would walk up to her, flash that frankly unfair smile of his, and before she knew it he had whatever he wanted from her. Not a single time, though, she thought with an unhelpful bitterness, was she what he wanted. 

She gave up long ago, trying to get him to remember they were soulmates. A year ticked by and the only thing he was ever interested in was "borrowing" body parts, looking at murder or suicide victims, and occasionally a cup of coffee - usually quite rudely demanded of her, though she suspected it was her own fault at this point as she always blindly left to retrieve it knowing she wanted nothing more than his favor - or access to any and all lab equipment. Mike had already told her that she couldn't give him everything simply because he asked for it. She had despised that entire conversation: the only reason she was bothered was because she knew it was true and was truthfully running out of options, and it ended with her a bit teary eyed and him looking at her with a complete look of sympathy. 

No, not even sympathy, she thought as she wheeled the slab over to the detective. It was complete and utter pity. 

After all, pity was a lovely way to describe this situation on her end, wasn't it? 

Instantly, her cynical thoughts dissipated once Sherlock's voice boomed through the room, grabbing her attention. 

"How fresh?" 

Straightening her back and shoulders, then folding her hands together, Molly put on her best smile and the most chipper voice she could muster. Vaguely, a thought appeared in her mind, which she quickly pushed away: pitiful. 

"Just in," she replied happily, as though this were her favorite subject to speak of. "Sixty seven, natural causes. He used to work here. I knew him. He was nice."  
Nice? That was the best she could do? She bit the inside of her cheek harshly. Why did she always manage to feel like an idiot in front of him?

With those big yet agile hands of his, Sherlock zipped up the bag with the largest amount of elegance Molly believed she had ever seen in the means of handling anything in a mortuary - oh, get a hold of yourself! she thought a bit angrily. 

Then came his smile again as he leaned up again, towering over her and directing his attention to her. "Fine. We'll start with the riding crop." 

...

He was always so sure of himself, wasn't he? she thought as she walked out of the room, opting to watch him work through the window. Often times he found a way to tell her to leave. She never remembered how he made it seem like such a great idea each time to leave him unattended, but he clearly hated her watching him.

Probably because he knew she wouldn't approve of the usually unorthodox way he had of treating corpses and, at times, equipment, alike. 

The feeling he always left her with was driving her mad. It was always a mixture of wanting to tell him off and snog him silly. 

When he began walloping the body, however, her thoughts were momentarily cut off. Why would he - ? She flinched as she heard the cracking noises even from the other side of the wall. Though she knew it was horrible to think in such a way, she couldn't help but think that he must be very fit to be able to strike something so forcefully and so many times without even thinking to stop. 

Though she'd never actually seen his arms - he always dressed so formally - she could sometimes see how defined his muscles were through those tight shirts of his. This was really only further confirmation, wasn't it? Oh, he was very strong indeed, wasn't he? 

She frowned. It was ridiculously unfair for a man so rude to be so attractive. Of course, she seemed to even like his personality. Perhaps not the barking at her or obvious manipulation (meaning he most likely knew that she was attracted to him in some way, too bloody observant for his own good), but he was certainly brilliant. And he never cared for anyone's opinion of him, was always so intensely focused, became vibrantly electric when he figured something out, and had a nature about him that was just extremely endearing for reasons she could never place. 

It must have been because she knew him as the love of her life. Although she was always fascinated by it, she always felt her heart ache when she thought of his work being the love of his. 

Oh, this was ridiculous!

She had enough of this. She was so tired of constantly watching him in admiration, horrid attempts at flirting and being ignored each time, the way he seemed to think he could get whatever he wanted from her. 

Well, she would show him, she thought, feeling a sudden spurt of courage and excitement within her as she reentered the room. This wasn't a just another favor to him, not this time. She would make her feelings known to him. At least this way, she could have her own way of showing him that she was a human being, not a resource. 

She had seen him before, she thought as she quickly passed into the restroom to swipe on some lipstick as a last minute decision. He did have a heart. He could be incredibly kind and caring, it was just masked. In those situations, he tried to make it look as though he only performed acts of kindness to get the work he wanted completed, but she saw through it. There was always something in his eyes. This little trace that he cared, that he enjoyed what he did as more than just a stimulant for his brain. He very clearly knew that not every crime was just a puzzle, but he liked helping people. 

Maybe she could take off that mask for a bit. Possibly once she asked him, he would see what he was doing. A look of realization and apology would cross his features and he would accept her invitation. Then, on their date...no, she couldn't think that far ahead. Not yet. Right now, she only had to convince him to go somewhere with her.

Deciding to start a little rapport, she smiled kindly at him. "So, bad day, was it?" she joked, approaching him as confidently as she could manage. 

Instantly, the man only went to scrawling in his notebook, ignoring her entirely. "I need to know what bruises form in the next twenty minutes. A man's alibi depends on it. Text me." 

Molly swallowed, her smile faltering. Still, she was going to insist on this one. She would really ask him this time. She owed it to herself.

"Listen, I was wondering...maybe later, when you're finished-"

"Are you wearing lipstick? You weren't wearing lipstick before." 

Immediately, Molly felt half the confidence she had come in with evaporate. At least he looked clueless as to why she had put it on. 

"I..erm...I refreshed it a bit," she answered nervously. But he was quite busy, wasn't he, maybe she should try- no, she thought stubbornly, he was going to listen to her. He could spare thirty seconds. What's the worst he could do? Well, actually, with that sharp tongue of his, she didn't want to think about that...

His eyes bore onto her face for what felt like an eternity, and Molly was massively grateful that at least she wasn't blushing. "Sorry, you were saying?" He asked, any suspicion from before leaving his face as if he had forgotten the discovery altogether. Maybe he had. He mentioned deleting thoughts he had to her before. 

It appeared that the only way to ask now was to force it out. She lifted her gaze to him again, looking at him with earnest. 

"I was wondering if you'd like to have coffee." There. It was straightforward, he could answer honestly and she wouldn't have to guess whether or not his ignoring her blatant attempts at winning him over was purposeful. Or something like that.

"Black, two sugars please, I'll be upstairs." He walked past her, and Molly found herself, once again, completely dumbfounded by the man as he left her alone. 

"...Okay."

SHERLOCK

She seemed upset at his answer. How come? He had answered her question. Perhaps she didn't want to actually make coffee and it was only a formality of hers. She did have odd quirks like that. 

He would be lying to himself if he said he didn't find them charming, but that was something he had no time to think about. After all, it hardly mattered what he found charming; in fact, it would be best to delete that observation. 

If only he could.

That had become the most increasingly frustrating thing about knowing Molly Hooper. No matter how unimportant, how irrelevant a fact about her seemed to be, once he learned it, he could not delete it. Regardless of how many times he tried, it never went away.

It bothered him at times, but even though he never realized it, when he had nothing pressing to think of he always wandered over to her in his Mind Palace. He would open up her closet - no, now she was a room (he supposed now that her lipstick choice and unnatural disillusion with coffee were permanently stowed away, he needed the space) - and mull over everything he knew of her. 

In the four years he had known her, she had become a comforting presence. A constancy, something the detective rarely had in his life. During times of frustration, he would think of her chuckling at something he said and somehow his chest would feel a bit lighter, or the way she could take anything he was doing just as seriously as he did, even when others thought it as strange, and it would even bring a somewhat rare smile to his face. 

Of course, this was nothing at all that he could admit to himself, because he insisted upon her, as he did with most people, being mostly irrelevant, and only important in the event that he needed to complete his work. 

Still, even he knew that something was different when it came to her. Scarcely did he trust anyone directly upon meeting them, and if he did, rarely did that trust remain constant. 

However, he had trusted Molly before he even introduced himself to her. It was always irritating to him, how he always felt he knew her from before, but knew she wasn't lying when she said she had never seen him before they properly met. "I would remember your face," she had said with that little smile of hers, he remembered, before she looked slightly horrified and went back to her own work. He did not know why.

Molly Hooper was, quite simply, very transparent, except for when she wasn't. And Sherlock had never met anybody like that. 

He needed to figure her out someday, he knew. She very clearly wasn't lying to him about anything, but he could tell she was aware of something that he wasn't. Something that was bothering her. 

Part of him felt...different about her being bothered by anything. In a very unpleasant way. Was it sadness? 

He scoffed. "Nonsense," he assured himself quietly as he entered the lift, pressing the button to go up to the next floor. He'd think on it later. He had far more pressing matters to attend to. 

Or, at least, that's the very same lie he would tell himself for quite some time, if only to escape the tug in his mind that he was forgetting something very important about her.


End file.
